Wednesday, January 28, 2015

"I
hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its
brutality, its futility, its stupidity."

Dwight D.
Eisenhower

Image source: www.sofrep.com

I am
struggling to understand the small but vocal backlash against Clint Eastwood’s
movie, American Sniper. This movie, like many before it, is based on the real
life story of Chris Kyle. He was a Navy Seal credited with the most sniper
kills in US history. I have no problem with people disliking the film, or disagreeing
with Eastwood’s vision but what bothers me is the unfair politicisation,
seeming hypocrisy and the often one-sided arguments of many of these critics.

One
critical review I read was written by Peter Maass at The Intercept (“HowClint Eastwood Ignores History in ‘American Sniper’). In
this piece he chastises his fellow reviewers from the Los Angeles and New York
Times as people “who spend too much time in screening rooms” because
in Mr. Maass’s estimation they “are falling over themselves in praise
of it.” To begin with I find his criticism rather disingenuous. He is
part of the same media establishment that completely abdicated its responsibility
in the lead up to the US invasion of Iraq. The American media failed to
challenge the veracity of every hasty, unproven claim and the numerous
unverified assertions of the Bush administration for months before the
invasion. I believe it amounted to the greatest failing of media in modern
times.

So it
seems ironic when Mr. Maass says “We got Iraq wrong in the real world. It
would be nice to get it right at the multiplex,” considering he was
part of the establishment that failed to question Cheney and Bush before they
invaded a sovereign nation; without provocation, justification or any real or
imminent threat to America. It seems convenient for Mr. Mass to again
abdicate his responsibility; this time by chastising a Hollywood movie. It
would seem that he wants to cleanse his conscience of all the innocent Iraqi
blood on American media hands. If Mr. Maass were serious about righting the
wrongs of America’s invasion, he would stop picking on soldiers who served
their country and Hollywood, and work on persuading the International Court to
summon Messrs. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Blair and every other architect of
this illegal invasion before a war crimes tribunal.

Before I
tackle some of the other criticisms that I have read in other media reviews and
people’s Facebook posts, I want to clarify that it is a Hollywood film. It
never claims to be a documentary, or a historically and factually accurate
account of the Iraq war. Furthermore, the filmmakers have gone out of their way
to say that they were not trying to make a war movie, much less present a
critique of the mess America made in Iraq. Besides, the last time I checked
movies are still made to entertain (and make money) by suspending reality with
larger than life characters, salacious storylines and over-the-top
dramatisations of actual events; even when they are based on biographies. If
you want accuracy, analysis and facts, watch a PBS documentary.

Additionally, I think we can agree that no matter how brilliant a movie,
nothing from Hollywood must be upheld for its historical accuracy or a
realistic and honest portrayal of real-life events. That would just make for boring film. This is entertainment
pure and simple; I doubt people would pay money to watch the very monotony they
came to escape. So, for people to suddenly hold this movie to such a high
standard would be the equivalent of saying that they get their world
news from Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert. Then decide
to take these men to task for factual inaccuracies, lack of objectivity,
presenting one-sided views and for dramatising and making light of serious
events. Ava DuVerney, the director of Selma, after being criticized for
historical inaccuracies in her film, pointed out that we will become a very sad
and dangerous society if we expect our kids to learn history through our
movies.

Another
major criticism that people have is that Kyle, as he states in his
autobiography, seems to have relished killing and referred to Iraqis as savages.
It is likely he enjoyed killing, but Kyle is hardly alone in this. It is said that
we must be passionate about what we do to truly excel. So why does it not hold true
for soldiers, who are trained killers? I am not saying that every soldier
enjoys pulling the trigger and taking a human life, but how can we discount
that a small percentage of the men we train to be cold blooded killers will get
addicted to and enjoy killing? To this point, I think Kyle’s character in the
movie forces us to accept that war is not pretty. It is not politically
correct, it is not fair and it is always senseless. The actions taken by
soldiers on the battlefield will never fit into neat our little moral codes or
Geneva Conventions that make us feel warm and fuzzy in the safety of our homes.
War forces good and honourable men to sometimes do both evil and dishonorable
things. Soldiers see what human beings were never meant to witness, and war
changes everyone. Even those who make it back lose a large part of their humanity.
I don’t believe our souls can ever un-see what our eyes have seen. That is the
real cost of war, beyond physical injuries. Just like Taya Kyle tells her
husband Chris, there are thousands of veterans who came back physically but are
yet to make it back emotionally and mentally to their families. This movie does a good job of
reminding us of this very real and hidden cost to our soldiers and their
families. Have you ever wondered why the largest percentages of homeless are
veterans? In, 2013 alone the VA served more than 249,000 Veterans who were homeless
or at risk of becoming homeless (Source: US Department of
Veterans Affairs).

Another
criticism that has been leveled at the filmmakers is that they chose to show
only one side of Kyle’s character, leaving out the evil blood lust and racist
overtones that come through in his book. I would argue that this holds true for
every movie with a flawed hero, from a Gordon Gekko to Abe Lincoln to MLK to JFK.
An essential part of great film making is to get an audience to feel empathy
with its hero - to a point where we are able to forgive even their worst
trespasses because all men have flaws. This may not be the reality, but it is
what all brilliant directors and successful films do. I would even argue that
Kyle's killing of a young Iraqi boy, barely ten years old, in the opening
moments of the film is a big character flaw that creates a likeability deficit,
which the rest of the film needs to work hard to overcome, in order to win back
the audience’s empathy for its hero. I have never read his book, but I don’t
see Kyle as a hero. I see him as another unfortunate victim of an unnecessary
war.

To this
point I would also add that movies, video games and other forms of
entertainment cannot ever become our yardstick for reality, values, principles,
and history or life lessons. Those still need to be taught in our homes and schools,
so that when we consume various forms of entertainment we are able to
differentiate between good, bad, fiction and reality and never the other way
around. I also disagree that the film fails to show the general disillusionment
with the Iraq war, and the lack of clarity of mission. In the movie there is a
very powerful scene where Kyle meets his brother, who is returning home from
Iraq, as Kyle arrives for another tour. His brother’s utter disenchantment and
disillusionment with America’s purpose in Iraq is juxtaposed beautifully as it
clashes with Kyle’s blind patriotism and unquestioning, brainwashed, jingoistic
sense of duty.

Also, I
think it is very easy for us to forget how one-sided and “sanitized” the Iraq
war reporting was in the American media. It felt more clean and censored than
daytime soap operas, so much so that the vast majority of us barely remembered
there were men and women dying and being maimed daily. This, as we blissfully
continued to drive to the mall and impatiently wait in line at Starbucks, while
checking our smartphones for the latest Kardashian gossip. Again this alternate
reality is something the movie delves into. We see Bradley Cooper’s character
struggle and have a hard time processing this total lack of care and awareness
among American people, the same people he had gone to die for.

Veteran
care or lack thereof is another ignored aspect of war of which American Sniper
raises awareness, in a very powerful way. Benjamin Franklin said
that "Wars are not paid for in wartime, the bill comes
later." It is this real and ongoing human cost of war we continue
to underestimate, that American Sniper delves into masterfully. None of us have
to deal with the long-term effect it has on children and family members of
servicemen. We all saw Obama declare an end to the war in Iraq, but consider that
among those who made it back there are now a million Iraq and Afghanistan war
veterans with permanent and life redefining disabilities. They include veterans
with lost limbs, traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress (PTSD),
depression, hearing loss, breathing disorders, diseases, and other long-term
health problems (Source: Cost
of War, Brown University). In fact, medical experts say
that many of Kyle’s unsubstantiated claims, like punching Jesse Ventura and
killing looters during Hurricane Katrina, are consistent with patients with
severe PTSD. Let’s not forget that Chris Kyle served four tours; he witnessed
the horror of war for close to a decade.

It is
easy to politicise and be critical of everything, as we take for granted the
very freedoms that the Chris Kyle’s were told they were fighting to protect.
The point is not whether you see Chris Kyle as a hero or villain. This movie is
worth seeing because it is ultimately an anti-war movie. One that forces us to
recognise the human cost of war, through the eyes of a soldier who has an
over-simplistic moral code, which actually makes him the ideal soldier.
However, even he cannot escape what Eisenhower and Franklin understood - the
ugliness and inhumanity of war; scars all veterans and their families bear
forever.

If we understand
this, then we might understand why everyone who witnesses war first hand says that
there are no winners. Even the victors lose. This realization alone will ensure
that we begin to hold our leaders more accountable and question any decisions to
go to war the next time they try to pull the wool over our eyes and rush in. We
must never forget that even though war is sometimes necessary, it should always be
the last resort.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have
the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and
that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses."

Malcom X

There is a fundamental issue that
exists today and I want to call it the greatest existential crisis of our time;
it is the choice to make money or to do the right thing. I understand that this
choice is not something mankind is facing for the first time and that we have always
grappled with it in capitalist societies, but my concern is that the tilt in
favour of making money, today, seems to override standing on our principles and
ethics. More than ever before in our history. Today, the vast majority of
corporations and individuals seem to feel that bottom-line growth justifies the
means, and this is something that should concern us all, greatly.

Media is the most powerful
communication tool. In fact, I would argue that with the advent of social
media, where anyone with an internet connection can spread news, the role of
the mainstream media has not diminished but become even more important. The
internet is filled with rumours and falsehoods, and social media in large
part fuels stories that are unverified but popular and trending due to their
sensational or gossipy nature. In such a world, the role of established media
outlets as the arbiters or truth and fact checking, takes on much greater
urgency. And it requires far more responsibility from editors and publishers
than ever before in history. Yet driving eyeballs and making money has become
an equally important goal for all these media houses that are struggling to
survive in the digital age; a situation that has created a serious dilemma
between chasing revenue and applying ethics in journalism. The question is
whether to break news first (to drive maximum eyeballs and revenue) or wait to
check the facts and risk being an hour late to the party - which in social
media standard time is roughly a decade late.

Even though the reality is that
speed and being first count for more eyeballs than being factually correct, it
does not absolve so-called reputable media outlets of the greater
responsibility that they have to society. With great power comes great
responsibility. Granted, mainstream media is no longer our only source of information.
For that reason, it is even more important for them to be sources of trusted
and reliable information. Here, I make a distinction between cable news and
mainstream news; the former is largely opinion, gossip and entertainment, while
the latter needs to be the opposite. However, both should aspire to greater
truth, based on some of the ethics and principles that have driven responsible
journalism for centuries. They both wield tremendous influence over the masses
and our minds.

Money can be made, but a reputation
cannot be regained or fixed (with all the dollars in the world) once the trust between
reader and institution has been broken. There should be absolutely no place for
the sensational half-truths and lack of fact checking that we see from
even the most venerable media institutions today. In the race to break a story
or get retweeted into becoming a trending topic, they are all willing to put
principles aside. Rolling Stone’s recent cover story on the horrific UVA campus
rape, and the Fox News interview with a Seal Team Six member who was part of
the Bin Laden raid, are both examples of the lack of ethics to which I am
referring.

Rolling Stone clearly chose to run
with a story based on the “sensational” aspects and in doing so chose to forego
the most basic tenets of journalism: fact checking, investigating, and corroborating
to ensure the integrity of the storyteller, all with a healthy dose of
skepticism that every journalist is meant to have. None of this is about
disrespecting the victim or doubting her story – it is simply about being
thorough and finding the truth. Equally, Fox News did a disservice to our
country by agreeing to give the Seal Team Six member a
platform on which to speak publicly. There used to be an unbreakable code of
honour among men who serve our country in the shadows. They did it knowing that
nobody would ever know their sacrifice by face or name; there is no greater
honour or valiance. I believe these men were the bravest of the brave because
they were driven by a sense of duty, honour and the noblest quality in humanity,
not by fame, fortune or personal glory. For this reason, Fox should have turned
down the Seal Team Six member, even knowing that other news outlets like CBS or
CNN would likely jump at the opportunity to do the same exclusive interview
with him. If Fox News had done this, they not only might have won my and many
peoples respect, but also would have set a very important precedent that
is much needed in journalism today – doing the right thing.

Equally, I was shocked by the number
of media outlets that jumped to disseminate the embarrassing Sony Studio emails
and other private and personal information of executives and
employees. Everyone was aware that this information was stolen and released
to the public by hackers. We live in the age of WikiLeaks, but there is a
fundamental difference between a whistle blower and a hacker. The latter is
always theft and extortion. I have no problem with media reporting the hacking,
even debating the state actors behind it and investigating the fingerprint of the
hackers, but institutions like The New York Times, The Wall Street
Journal and The Washington Post should have stopped short of sharing
the stolen information. They can and will probably justify their actions using “Bartnicki
vs Vopper,” where the Supreme Court ruled that “...the playing of
illegally intercepted material under these circumstances was constitutionally
protected, at least when the broadcaster wasn’t involved in the illegal
interception...” (Source: Washington Post Article).
They are legally within their rights, but my point is not about legality. It has
to do with guiding principles and ethics; things that used to be the
cornerstones of our society and journalism just a few decades ago. My
expectation would have been for these outlets to refrain from publishing any of
the stolen information; leaving that to less reputable
sites. A refusal to publish would also have sent a very strong message to
future hackers and served as a great disincentive to take the risk. It is
notoriety, through widespread exposure, that drives these cowardly criminals.

Media outlets who want to be
regarded as respectable should consider hacked information off-limits, much the
way eBay considers stolen goods listing unacceptable or how Sotheby’s will not
try to auction a painting for which the provenance is in serious doubt. Doing
so will draw an important ethical line in the sand which is so desperately
missing in journalism today - integrity. They may also gain our respect and their
eyeballs, as others start to follow suit.